by John Creasey
Two cars were parked a little way along. Men in uniform and in plain clothes were outside the entrance to the Mid-Union building. It wasn’t surprising that the police should concentrate on that, but—
How could he get out?
He climbed down and went away from the window as another car arrived, and stopped.
He began to sweat.
They had to get out now. If the police forced their way into the building next door, they would find the hole in five minutes, would be in this building in ten; squeezed between the two forces, Fitzroy and his companions wouldn’t have a chance.
“Jem,” he said, when back in the rear hall.
“Yes?”
“Any reinforcements out there?”
“No.”
“Okay. I’m going to open the door. I’ll keep them busy. I’ll take a few sparklers with me, that’ll fool them. I’ll draw them off, and when I’ve done that, you two get to the car. Take a sack each, and make it snappy.”
“But—”
“Think of anything better?” Fitzroy demanded angrily.
“No, but—”
“Then quit crabbing.”
“Fitz,” the other man said, in a whisper which was hardly audible, “you won’t go killing—”
“Who said anything about killing?”
“That gun?”
“What a gutless pair to work with,” Fitzroy growled. “Okay, if you want to spend the next ten years in jail, I don’t. Do it my way.” He didn’t give them a chance to answer, but went to the door.
He heard one of them breathing very heavily, then heard the rustle as he picked up the bag.
He opened the door a fraction, mildly surprised that it did open. He knew that the police would be watching intently, and that they hoped that whoever was inside would come out without realizing that anyone was lying in wait.
The light shone on the paving stones of the courtyard; on the frosted glass of the window of offices surrounding it; on a grating; on a drain pipe down which water gurgled. Apart from that, there was no sound.
He opened the door wider.
He saw nothing.
He called in a whisper: “Looks as if they’ve gone.”
At heart he did not believe that, but he was desperately anxious to get away, and wishful thinking fooled him for dazzling seconds. “Come on.”
He stepped into the courtyard. No one was in sight, and there were no shadows. Somewhere, high up, the wind whistled, but in this yard all was still. Perhaps they hadn’t realized that the door was opening. Perhaps they had gone to reinforce men at the Mid-Union building, not this.
He tiptoed across the courtyard to the end of the alley.
The others were in the courtyard now.
He carried the gun in front of him, but with the passing of every second, the palpitations grew less, for the chances of success were obviously greater. The car wasn’t far away; he would lead the way to it, and keep cover while they got in.
Then he heard a gasp: “Fitz!” a man cried.
Fitzroy spun round, saw one of his accomplices stagger, and saw a policeman jumping down from a window just above the door.
Other police appeared at first-floor windows, a whistle shrilled out along the alley.
Fitzroy fired at the falling policeman, did not wait to see if he had scored a hit, but turned toward the alley and ran. All hope of loot was gone, escape was his one purpose – escape, with the determination to shoot himself to safety.
19. The Escape
Gideon reached the offices of the Mid-Union Company when two police cars and a small crowd of policemen were outside. He slowed down, and a uniformed man with the helmet of the City police came forward, recognized him, and said: “Superintendent Cameron’s in Hay Court, sir.”
“Hay Court? Where—oh, I know. Thanks. All quite?”
“Someone inside there as shouldn’t be,” the constable said emphatically. “The manager’s on the way with another set of keys.”
“Good,” said Gideon. “Thanks.” He drove on, not travelling fast, looking for the narrow turning which would take him to Hay Court. He knew the City almost as well as he knew his own Square Mile, but not quite as well. In the West End he could have found his way about blindfolded; here, he wasn’t sure, until he saw another tall City policeman at a corner. The man put out an arm, to stop the car: a silent, immutable force, showing all the confidence in the world.
Gideon poked his head through the window.
“I’m Gideon. Is Superintendent Cameron here?”
“Just along here, sir, but I shouldn’t take the car if I were you. We’ve put a barricade up.”
“Oh, thanks. I’ll park along here.” Gideon drove on a few yards, and climbed out.
The night air was fresh but by no means cold. The sky had a clearness and the stars a brightness which were more common to winter than to spring. Gideon felt not so much tired now, as relaxed.
He walked briskly and with hardly a sound toward Hay Court. At the end of this narrow, cobbled road, he saw a row of galvanized dustbins beneath a gaslight, and grinned at the form of the barricade. Two policemen stood on duty; one peered at and recognized him, and saluted. Gideon passed between two dustbins, sharply conscious of the smell of rotting vegetables.
There was a small square, surrounded by high buildings, and with two recesses holding the doorways to small buildings, and one lane, which led toward Fenchurch Street. He remembered it well now. He saw two policemen climbing up the side of one building, and watched them in the semidarkness. They were making for a window sill above a door which was closed, and edged their way along.
He saw shadowy figures at one of the windows.
Cameron came up.
“Hallo, George,” he greeted, “good to see you.” They shook hands. Cameron was a man of medium size; even in this light his fair features and sharp, pointed nose were evident. “We think they’ll come out this way; a door opened a few minutes ago. And there’s a car waiting not far away, often parked there late, I’m told.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“No.” Cameron whispered a few other details: that he had telephoned the manager of the Mid-Union Company and been told that the top gates should not be locked. An observant constable had really started this, and a puzzled customer taken it a step further. Cameron was in a mood for rejoicing; so was Gideon. Usually they were called after the job was done, when the men and the loot were miles away, and the whole resources of the Force had to be called on, straining the men almost beyond endurance. This should be a short, sharp case, and—
“Look!” whispered Cameron.
In the faint light, they saw the doorway open. Then a man appeared, and looked round, cautiously. Had he looked up, he must have seen the policemen poised above him. He hesitated, then went back into the building.
Gideon’s big hand closed round Cameron’s arm, and gave a silent message. Cameron breathed: “Aye, a gun.”
Gideon felt his mood changing to one of acute wariness. He wanted to shout a warning to everyone else within earshot, but dared not. He sensed Cameron’s increased tension. Then the man with the gun came forward; other dark figures emerged from the doorway.
One of the policemen jumped.
The movement, the gasp and the scuffle of footsteps came quickly, and then the first man swung round, and Gideon saw him raise his arm.
“Look out!” roared Gideon.
But the shot came before his words. He saw the policeman falling, and heard a kind of squeal. Then the men who had come from the doorway all moved together, but it was impossible to tell one from another. A heavy weight fell. Policemen closed with one man, and then torch lights shone out, carving Hay Court into sections of bright light and darkness, showing the pallor of frightened faces, the darkness of clothes, the gun, struggling feet, a big sack.
Gideon concentrated on the gunman.
Fitzroy was free of police for a split second, but another was running at him, and Cameron moved, too.
Fitzroy fired, point blank.
“… swine,” Gideon muttered under his breath.
He waited, like a footballer ready to go into the tackle, swaying from side to side. The policeman fell back, then crumpled up.
Fitzroy was free of him – and Fitzroy saw another policeman coming at him.
He fired again.
The policeman swayed to one side, and Fitzroy made a wild leap, passed him, and reached the end of the alley. The gun was waving as he ran.
Only one big man in plain clothes was in his path.
“Now, drop that,” Gideon said. He was surprised that his own voice was level and intelligible. “Don’t be a fool.”
For a second, a long, frightening, deathly second, neither man moved.
Gideon knew that words were useless, only one thing could save him. He plunged forward, hands outstretched to clutch the gunman’s ankles. It was impossible to tell whether the other would shoot at him or not; if he pointed the gun downward and fired, he couldn’t miss.
Gideon felt the cloth of the man’s trousers in his fingers. He tried to grab the ankles, but missed. A foot cracked against his temple, and there was an explosive sound inside his head; he wasn’t sure whether it came from a shot or the kick. He drew his hands in, instinctively, to protect his head. The thief jumped over him, and the sharp crack of another shot came.
Gideon began to pick himself up, drunkenly.
No one came to help him.
He got to one knee. There was a nasty throbbing in his ears, but he knew that he hadn’t been shot, because there was no blood. He felt lightheaded. Sounds came as if from a long way off. On his feet, he staggered until he came up against the wall.
Someone said: “You all right, sir?”
“Yes. Yes, don’t worry about—” He didn’t finish, but tried to focus his gaze. The light in the court was brighter and clearer now, coming from rooms in the near-by offices as well as the torches. It was a strange, almost a frightening sight. Men bent over two policemen who lay on the ground, one of them grunting; moaning. Two men, each handcuffed to a policeman, were standing quite still. Sacks near the doorway told their own story. Then, from some way off, came the bark of another shot. “I’ve got a nasty feeling,” Gideon said, “that that brute’s going to get away.”
“You all right, George?” Cameron demanded.
“Yes, thanks.”
“What’ve you done to your head?”
“Just a kick.”
“We’ll get him,” Cameron said, “we’ll get him if—”
He didn’t finish. Words were futile, rage with himself as well as with the prisoner who had escaped was just as futile. The simple truth was that the man had shot his way out of the ambush, and in doing so, wounded three policemen, one of whom seemed to be in a bad way.
Ambulances had been summoned.
A general call had gone out for the gunman, and at least they knew his name and had a description; one of the prisoners had talked freely; words had spilled out with fear.
It had all happened ten minutes ago, and it seemed like hours. Gideon, his head aching but no longer giddy, had sent out the instructions by radiotelephone, but he felt sick. It wasn’t because of the kick or the fall – it was because of the failure.
Could one call it failure?
Already, he was beginning to ask himself questions about it, and his own part in it. Cameron had been in charge, but he needn’t have left so much to the City man. The truth was that he had taken this too casually, almost like an exercise; “trapped men cannot get away” had been his axiom, and he hadn’t allowed for a killer shooting his way to freedom.
Failure as such wasn’t the only bad thing. It meant that the Yard and all the Divisions would have to screw themselves up to a high-powered effort, and tension was never-ending. If all three men had been captured, the police could have breathed more easily; only routine jobs need have worried them; jobs like this seldom came up more than once in two or three weeks.
Well, it had to be done.
The night-duty man at the Yard would be doing much the same as he had been doing all day; every policeman in London would be steeling himself. Gideon couldn’t explain why, but it was a fact that if a policeman were shot and injured, especially if one were killed, something seemed to be infused into the rest of the Force. They became killer-minded. They would work until they dropped, and they would get this man Fitzroy. But that wasn’t the beginning or the end. They could only do one job at a time, and the little crooks who worked by night were quick to sense when the police had a big job on. This was a night when the graph of London’s crime would shoot upward sharply. In temporary, perhaps in false, security, the sneak thieves would be out like vultures ready to peck and tear at an unprotected carcass.
Gideon knew all this.
He knew, too, that if he had grabbed an inch closer to the gunman’s ankles, he would have brought the man down, and there would have been no need for the great hunt. That was one cause of his bitterness. He of all men knew how tightly the police were stretched; and he could have eased the burden for a little while, but had failed.
There it was.
He heard a bell ringing, shrilly; an ambulance was on its way. In the distance, another sounded. Then men came from Wattle Street. Next Gideon and Cameron went through the building next to Mid-Union, and found the hole which had been made into the lower vault.
Gideon’s lips turned down.
“They didn’t do that in a hurry,” he said.
“Dunno,” said Cameron, and bent down to pick up a small electric drill. “Homemade job, and it wouldn’t make much noise.” He paused. “You can’t get through there, can you?”
“No,” said Gideon.
“See you on the other side.” Cameron was already on his knees, ready to climb through.
Gideon walked back, into Hay Court, along the narrow cobbled road, into Wattle Street. The door was being unlocked, policemen were waiting warily, in case other gunmen lay in wait. None did. Gideon and a scared, worried manager, who had hurried from his home in Hampstead, led the way down the stairs. The empty reception office, the narrow stairs, the ordinary strong room – and the three members of the staff were found, stretched out, two of them struggling with their bonds, the other unconscious.
Outside, the hunt for Fitzroy went on.
Gideon yawned.
It was half-past twelve, exactly fifteen hours since he had stepped into his office that morning, an age ago. He was by himself for a few minutes, sitting in his car. No word had come in of Fitzroy’s capture, and the hunt might go on for days. The ambulances had carried off the wounded policemen and one of the Mid-Union staff, who was suffering badly from “shock and fright. None of the victims was likely to die, that was one relief. The accomplices had told their story, without defiance, as if they had realized that nothing else could help them.
They were amateurs who’d adapted army-acquired knowledge to the safe breaking. If they were to be believed, and Gideon thought that they were, the idea had been Fitzroy’s. But neither of them had raised any strenuous objections and they had come in of their own free will. These were the kind who really worried Gideon most. The old lags, the regulars, the confidence tricksters, the blackmailers, even the dope distributors – all of them were within Gideon’s range. He could understand them and he could calculate what they were likely to do. Amateurs were different, and their methods were different. They were likely to be more reckless, and so more deadly. A man like Fitzroy saw this as a great adventure, as well as a chance of making a fortune. A man like Chang saw it as a game to be played with great precision, and Chang would never take such risks as Fitzroy, would never shoot his way out. If he killed, it would be cunningly – as he had killed Foster. - Gideon found his lips twisting in a wry, almost bitter smile.
If Lemaitre had said that, he would have jumped on him. It was still a guess. It might not be a wild guess; there might be some reason for making it, but it was still a guess. He didn’t know
that Chang had killed Foster, tried to kill Birdy, was hunting Estelle down. He could not be sure that Foster had not served some other master, too, whom Chang did not know.
That was the trouble: not knowing.
If only he had known at the beginning of the day what he knew now, how much could have been prevented and how much done. If he’d handled Foster differently, Foster might be alive now, and willingly co-operating.
The thought of that hit Gideon with savage force, and suddenly he understood why he had been so easily depressed during the day.
He hadn’t liked Foster, and that was partly why his temper had broken. With almost any other man at the Yard – the sergeant who’d been so nervous and yet so efficient, for instance – he could have talked reasonably, almost as a friend. He began to go over in his mind the things he should have said to Foster, and the line he should have taken.
His head ached.
He wished Cameron would hurry up with whatever he was doing.
He wondered if they’d catch Fitzroy.
He worried about red-haired Estelle.
He heard the radiotelephone buzz, looked at the instrument without enthusiasm, picked it up, and flicked it on: “Gideon speaking.”
“How you doing, George?” This was Lemaitre, speaking direct; and Lemaitre with a lilt in his voice as if his Fifi and his fears were all forgotten. Lemaitre speaking like that was a tonic in itself: cold water in Gideon’s face. “Like to meet me over at Shippy’s place, Whitechapel?”
“Why, what’s on?”
“We’ve made quite a find,” Lemaitre said smugly. “See you there.”
He banged his receiver down.
Gideon fought down the momentary annoyance. In some ways Lemaitre would never grow up, and his attitude now was rather like a boy’s. But he was highly pleased with himself, and that might mean anything.
Anything. Gideon was getting up when the telephone rang again, was tempted to go out and ignore it, but conquered temptation.
He had never been more glad.
“Gillick here, G.G.,” said Gillick, spitting his words out. “Now I have got some news for us, trust B2. Eh, old boy? All right, I’ll get to the point. We’ve picked up that chap Fessell you’re after, the Islington sweetshop job. One of my chaps thought he saw him earlier in the evening, and kept a lookout. He was in a hotel, dabs make it certain. Shall we keep him here for the night?”